When police arrived, they found Amy Freeman Burton, 37, dead from a gunshot wound.

Her daughter, Ainsley Freeman, was also found shot and was transported to Eden Medical Center. She later succumbed to her injuries.

Amy Freeman Burton's mother, Linda Walp of Chesterfield, Mo., said her daughter and granddaughter had moved to Pleasanton around late December or early January. Walp said the family moved for employment reasons.

The Pleasanton Unified School District's Superintendent Parvin Ahmadi said Ainsley was an eighth grader who had attended Thomas S. Hart Middle School for only a few months.

Ahmadi said that counselors have been pulled from other middle schools as well as elementary and high schools in the Pleasanton Unified School District to assist in grief counseling at Hart Middle School.

"We have additional counselors to support our students and staff. The best thing we can do today is to be good listeners. Let students know these feelings are to be expected," Ahmadi said.

Cyndy Bormann, a counseling secretary at Hart Middle School, where Ainsley said that all the middle school counselors in the Pleasanton Unified School District are at Hart Middle School today.

"We are focusing on taking care of our students. We will be providing grief counseling to all students. We have additional counselors on site," Bormann said.

Pleasanton Middle School Principal John Whitney said that his school's three counselors have been dispatched to Hart Middle School to assist with grief counseling in the wake of the tragic incident.

"Our counselors have all been dispatched to assist with the students and staff to help them get through this," Whitney said. Further information about the circumstances of the deaths was not immediately available and police have not said whether the victims died as a result of a murder-suicide or a double homicide.

Anyone with information about the shooting has been asked to call Pleasanton police at (925) 931-5100.

Published at 8:24 PM PDT on May 8, 2012 | Updated at 8:26 PM PDT on May 8, 2012